Without the meditative background that is criticism, works become isolated gestures, historical accidents, soon forgotten.

On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth.

The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.

Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality.

... characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about.

By giving the love act a name, if only an innocent little word like, "it," he paved the way for other words, words that would reflect physical love as in a set of mirrors.

Ah, ladies and gentlemen, a man lives a sad life when he cannot take anything or anyone seriously.